Loneliness and Neuroticism Humans are known for being highly social beings. This is why isolation often leads to an unstable state of mind in which feelings of loneliness may takes over one’s sanity and can sometimes result in negative personality traits like neuroticism, as seen in Clarice Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H.. In this fiction novel, we are introduced to the main character as a successful, independent, business woman whose personal details are kept to the minimum. G.H. lives alone and her only company is a maid who lives in a separated room of her apartment. The story begins when G.H. decides to clean her maid’s room. Throughout this scenario, there are several incidents in which G.H.’s reactions highlight symptoms of …show more content…
She describes how much she enjoys arranging things and that she considers this as her only hobby. But her fascination and urge to compulsively arrange things help the reader realize that it is more than just a hobby of hers. “…if money and education hadn’t put me in the class I belong to, I’d normally have worked as the maid who arranges things in a large home of rich people, where there is so much to arrange” (The Passion, 25). The way she explains that if she could do anything besides her job she would work at arranging things, reveals her bizarre passion. This need to arrange objects in a specific manner that G.H. feels can be associated with the instability and little control she had as a child, in which she developed a phobia of cockroaches because of her living …show more content…
The mural consists of life size outlines of a man, a woman, and a dog and. After examining the mural for some time, G.H. projects her views of herself to that of the maid’s as an unconscious defense against anxiety and guilt. She does this by concluding that the maid has drawn this to describe her. “I looked at the mural where I was likely depicted… I, the Man. And as for the dog – was that the epithet she gave me?” (The Passion, 32.). G.H. herself reveals her own insecurities by assuming that she is being characterized by the man and the dog. Because there is no concrete evidence that the maid’s intentions with the mural is to portray G.H., it is easily inferred that what G.H. sees in the mural is a reflection of the way she perceives herself. She believes she is being represented as the man most likely because the traditional roles of men in society are to work and provide for the family while women’s roles are to take care of the house and children; but G.H supports herself financially, is not a mother, and has a maid to do all the housework for her. On the other hand, the dog represents her absent-minded personality. She describes the dog as “more pegged to itself than to the wall” (The Passion, 31). It is evident that this refers to the fact that she constantly focuses only on herself and pays very little attention to what is